No. 63, Sizzling Hiramasa Sashimi at The Catch

If I'm at the Catch, I'm eating seafood and/or steaks--maybe a burger, if I don't need to impress anyone and want to pig out. But regardless of entree, my appetizer is always the same: the Sizzling Hiramasa Sashimi, a flowery title for a dish that skips across culture like the city in which it's made.

They prepare the dish tableside, with a smiling cook prepping the whole meal starting with a a pan lightly touched with peanut oil and a chili soy sauce. On this potion goes the sushi rice, toasted just a tad so the bottom crisps up like a good tahdig. The kingfish sashimi goes on top; the fish is then topped with ginger, green onion, truffle oil, crisped shallots, and tobiko caviar. The buttery nature of the kingfish, the slight sweetness of the rice, the aromatics of it all: The Catch's sashimi is worthy of a South Coast Plaza spread yet lurks comfortably among the burgers and the steaks of a place that's always stepping up to the plate and acting more like Mike Trout than Albert Pujols--good job!

Gustavo Arellano is the editor of OC Weekly, author of the syndicated column "¡Ask a Mexican!", and Taco USA: How Mexican Food Conquered America. He started at the paper with an angry, fake letter to the editor and went from there—only in Anacrime!